Martin Underwood wrote:
"John Laird" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 1 Apr 2004 14:35:41 +0100, "Nick Finnigan"
wrote:

"MeatballTurbo" wrote in message
t...

TBH, I'm not sure of any car with a reasonable sized engine that
has peak torque at 5krpm.

peak BHP on a normal family car with a petrol engine is normally
arround the 5-6krpm unless it is a VTEC/VVTi variable timing type
engine in which case it is higher.

The 2.0 Vtecs seem to have peak power and torque at
normal revs, and the Type S and S2000 are higher.

Same technology, widely different implementations for different
design goals. The S2000 is something outrageous like 220bhp,
normally aspirated... I think these and the Type S engines are the
ones supposedly hand-built by just two guys in Japan.

With a diesel engine you actually get the peak in the torque (which
governs the ability to accelerate out of a bend/roundabout and when
changing lanes on a motorway) at normal engine speeds (eg around 2000
rpm), so you don't have to change down to accelerate. Driving a
petrol-engined car is a real faff now I'm used to my Peugeot 306 HDi
- I tend to forget that other cars can't take roundabouts in third
with smooth progressive acceleration right back up to 30 or 40 again
without the need to change gear mid-way.

Perhaps you should get an automatic?

What *is* the point in designing an engine whose torque and power
peaks are at even *higher* rpm than normal? I'd have thought that the
Holy Grail was an engine that had as much low-end torque as possible
to minimise gear-changes, especially around town.

errm, because you don't want maximum torque while driving around town?? I'd
rather have more control while around towns and be able to floor it up to
maximum torque when out of town. I don't want my car to lurch into a shop
window by tapping the accelerator! In fact, a friend of mine commented on
this fact when she drove a diesel hire car for the first time, she didn't
like all the torque!

Is it my
imagination or are modern petrol-engined cars lower-geared that older
ones? When I borrowed a petrol Peugeot 306 while my car was in for a
service, the poor thing's engine was screaming away at about 4000 rpm
at 70 on the motorway, whereas my car manages about 2500 rpm: much
quieter.

But you're happy to wake everyone up at 6am in the winter when you start up
your car :-) Have you driven a modern petrol car? I can't say I've noticed
any engine screaming at normal motorways speeds, even very fast motorway
speeds.

And the poor petrol-engined car ran out of puff at motorway
speed: its 50-70 acceleration was very poor.

I imagine you were trying to do this in 5th gear?

This was a top-range
1800 engine, not some under-powered 1300. Give me a diesel
(preferably the 130 bhp one used in the Golf GTI!!!) any day.

In general an 1800 petrol will be much quicker than a 1800 diesel, just look
at 0-60 (or 50-70) times in magazines. Just because *you* can't drive a
petrol, doesn't mean nobody else can either!